Say What?

Gravitational lens \grah-vih-TAY-shun-alLENZ\ n. Anything that has a gravitationalpull — stars, galaxies, and even darkmatter — can bend light passing by,distorting the image of the light’s sourcethat is seen on Earth. Scientists can usethis distortion to look for objects that wouldbe too dim to see otherwise by pickingout anomalies in deflected light. An international team of researchersnoticed just such a disturbance in the bright halo (shown) created by thesupermassive elliptical galaxy JVAS B1938+666 as it warps the viewof a more distant galaxy. Further investigation led to the discovery of asatellite dwarf galaxy located nearly 10 billion light-years from Earth, theresearchers report in the Jan. 19 Nature. — Allison Bohac

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ON THE SCENE BLOG
Science can't hear back
in time. Read more in
"Archaeoacoustics: Tantalizing, but fantastical."

GENES & CELLS
An eye protein helps mice
and people sense vibrations.
See "Seeing, feeling have
something in common."

Science Past | FROM THE ISSUE OF MARCH 10, 1962

KENNEDY URGES BETTER PAY — President John F.Kennedy’s proposal to raise the pay scale for top Govern-ment employees should help stem the flow of scientistsand engineers now leaving public servicefor much higher pay in industry.... Thetop Government salary under most scalesis $18,500 a year. Many top positions arenot filled because prospective employeeswould not consider less than $25,000. Acomparison of salaries of Governmentemployees and industry employees is remarkable, if notappalling. GS- 16 workers, for example, receive between$15,200 and $16,200 while equivalent workers in industryreceive at least $20,000 with a median of $25,900.

Introducing

A viney, wild cousin of the potato has become the only
species named for Jeanne Baret, the first woman known
to travel around the Earth and possibly the only one to do
so illicitly, disguised as a male assistant to a botanist. Sailing in 1766 with explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville’s
crew, Baret endured about two years of nautical life,
including foul water and occasional rat dinners. When the
ailing botanist, Philibert Commerson, was too ill to work,

she collected specimens herself.
More than 70 species are named
in Commerson’s honor, and on
January 3 in PhytoKeys, Eric Tepe
of the University of Utah and his
colleagues christened Solanum

Science Future

March 30–31
Meet astronaut Richard
Linnehan and Nobel winners
at the Texas A&M Physics and
Engineering Festival in College
Station. See bit.ly/SNtamu

March 31
See glowing creatures at a
bioluminescence exhibit at the
American Museum of Natural
History in New York City. Learn
more at bit.ly/SNbiolum
Alaska

A new map of U.S. plant hardiness zones shifts much of the country
about half a zone warmer. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the
shift re;ects not only any climate warming that has occurred but also
better mapping methods and accuracy. Find your zone by zip code at
planthardiness.ars.usda.gov SOURCE: U.S. DEPAR TMENT OF AGRICULTURE